Olive Creations

My sister-in-law, Tonyia, suggested that Gary and I find a local store in our area that sold high end olive oil. I was feeling especially lazy that day and didn't feel like looking one up so she found one, looked up the address and URL for me and I checked it out the following day.

This begins my love affair with Olive Creations. It's quite the drive from Buckeye but once we got there we knew it was totally worth it.
They're a small store and I really, really like that they are a local, family and Christian owned company.
As soon as we walked in the door we were greeted and asked if we'd ever been there before. We, of course, said "no" and so she started to explain everything to us. At first we felt overwhelmed. One wall is lined with balsamics and the other wall is lined with olive oils. All throughout the small store were little, plastic cups so that you could sample EVERYTHING and boy did we. They had about 20 different flavors of balsamics and I'm going to guess about 30 olive oils.  Each futis* was marked with what was in it and also gave suggestions as to which oil or balsamic paired well with that one and suggestions as to what to use them for. There were also little recipe pads through out the store so you could peel one off and take them with you! Although the main attraction is the oils and balsamics I noticed they had homemade pastas in there (which are actually Paleo friendly). They also have a good selection of flavored sea-salts and salsas and probably more that I didn't see because we spent so much time tasting all of the oils and vinegars.
We left with 2 bottles of balsamic and 2 bottles of oil.

Lemon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Garlic Extra Virgin Olive Oil

 Raspberry Balsamic Vinegar
Lemon White Balsamic Vinegar











In the end, I'd recommend this store to anyone, especially those who love to cook and discover new flavors.
 I am REALLY looking forward to trying these in recipes and drizzling over salads or anything else I can get my hands on.

Olive Creations
2480 W. Happy Valley Rd Suite 1202
Phoenix AZ 85085
623-587-6005




*Highly polished, stainless steel containers used for wine, milk and olive oil.

Oh look! It's not a recipe!

Where have I been?

Well cooking obviously... and actively avoiding life for various reasons.

1. Going through some shit that involved bills and finances (solved)
2. November/December is the year anniversary of some bad memories.
3. Always have a hard time around the holidaze so I've been (again) actively trying to stay out of Bi-Polar Depression mode. (so far successful)
4. The weather has been downright ridiculous around here in Phoenix so my fibro is screaming at me. This brings fatigue ... lots of fatigue.

Speaking of weather... SERIOUSLY??
It was 32 this morning when I woke up. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, I KNOW that's not cold compared to *here* or *there* but this is Phoenix. I'm acclimated to 95+ and honestly no matter where in the country I have lived (and it's been quite a few places) 32 has ALWAYS been cold to me. If you're honestly tired of listening to me complain (mostly on Facebook) that it's cold then I'll stop but I swear to God I don't want to hear a BLOODY word in the summer from you whiners.

Are you ready for Christmas? I AM... I have been since almost August. I mean I have a few things to buy still but I have KNOWN what I was doing since August. I started way early this year because it was planned rather early on for my Mom/Dad/Sister and her family to all come out here for Christmas and I wanted to spend the last 2 weeks preparing for that, not running around like a chicken shopping .. ya know?
I AM really excited though.

This month brings the end of 2011. It started off as one of the worst years of my life (the last 3 years have been contending for number 1). It's ending up to be ... ok maybe not one of the best but better off than I have been the last few so I'm not going to complain. I still have a LOT of CRAP to work through in my head but I'm getting there. :)
I've been able to see my entire family this year, including my brother whom I hadn't seen in SIX years. That was great.
I've been able to finally work on things with Gary without past behaviors looming in the dark corners just putting a damper on anything we've tried to do in the past. It's felt real, it's felt nice. I love him.

And that's all I've got to say about that! /Forrest Gump

p.s. I just saw that my template has somehow messed up and so I'll be fixing it/looking for a new one later. :)

Check your comments at the door.

Ok, Short and sweet.
I KNOW it's dry here about 9 months out of the year but our hottest months consisting of July/August/September is Monsoon season. Google it ok?
It's over 110 most of the time and our humidity is 50% and up. Is it as high as the south east coast? Nope but it's NOT dry.
I don't see any of you guys packing your bags to come visit us those months because you're a bunch of chickens. ;)

If I hear "But, it's a dry heat" one more time do NOT be surprised if our phone call is suddently disconnected. K? Thnx and Bai.

p.s. The day I took that picture it was 68% humid outside. Is that dry? No, I didn't think so. :)